


Moja Mysz

by Martin Iceworth (Iceworth)



Series: Welcome Home [2]
Category: Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Masquerade (Choice of Games Visual Novels)
Genre: Depressed Lettow Kaminsky, Elisa Mulgrew (OC), Embrace fic, Gen, Human-centric, Lettow Kaminsky as the Gangrel sire, Maddyverse, OC-centric, One-Sided Attraction, pre-game, unrequited crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29125125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iceworth/pseuds/Martin%20Iceworth
Summary: Elisa Mulgrew met Lettow Kaminsky for the first time thrice — first as a stranger on a rooftop, second as a sire, and third as the Prince of a city.This is a story about the first two.
Relationships: Unrequited Gangrel/Lettow Kaminsky
Series: Welcome Home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2127579
Comments: 12
Kudos: 8





	Moja Mysz

**Author's Note:**

> So anyway remember playing VTMNR as a Gangrel and being like "Lampago is totally the canonical Gangrel sire"?
> 
> Me neither.

* * *

I don't know where you're going

But do you got room for one more troubled soul?

I don't know where I'm going

But I don't think I'm coming home

And I said, "I'll check in tomorrow if I don't wake up dead"

This is the road to ruin

and we're starting at the end

\- Fall Out Boy, _Alone Together_

* * *

**Tucson, Arizona**

**October 1999**

Once the eagle’s broken wings were pinned in place with the belt, its demeanour did a complete 180 and it calmed, as if it hadn’t just been tearing chunks out of Elisa’s arm.

She shoved the towel-covered bundle somewhat unceremoniously into the dog carrier — the cat carrier turned out to be too small — put a blanket over it, shooed off the gawking bystanders who’d gathered around, and examined her arm. She’d probably done more damage pinning its wings — well, to the wings, not her arm — but the poor thing had kept struggling and trying to flap off, so what else could she do, let it flap into traffic and _die_ ? Not that there was much traffic at 8PM, but — well, she ’d still had to do _something_. Sooner or later a coyote or somebody’s cat would have picked it off.

But now her arm streamed enough blood to make her dizzy just looking at it. And she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but her thumb and forefinger felt as if they were tingling a bit. And a bit… zappy. Like the occasional jolt of electricity was going through her forearm.

Shit. She was going to have to go to the ER after this mauling. There was a reason why guidelines suggested two people for eagle capture. Two, not one vet nurse at the end of an overtime shift.

She dug the first aid kit out of the boot and bandaged her arm firmly, wrist to elbow. Her dominant hand had a few nicks from that powerful beak, but nothing a few bandaids couldn’t fix. Hopefully she had no permanent damage. (That tingling, though, was a bit worrying.) She’d need new scrubs, but, well, body fluids were a hazard with her occupation anyway.

This was the first time she’d had a punch up with an _eagle_ , though. And she’d never before seen one that looked like this — immense, gold, and looking nothing like the natives she was used to. Somebody’s exotic pet, maybe?

Well, whoever it belonged to, they’d fucked up.

“Sorry for frightening you, darling,” she crooned she got into the car, putting the carrier on the passenger seat. Right hand drive. It constantly confused her passengers, but the furred and feathered ones never cared. “But I can’t leave you out for the coyotes. What the hell was your owner thinking?” She started up the car with her right hand, turned back onto the street with her less-injured arm on the wheel. “No way you’re a wild one…”

The blanket shifted loose as she did a U-turn. The massive eagle glared at her, lying on its back like an offended burrito, but didn’t fuss or panic. It was bleeding almost as much as she was. One eye was completely obscured by red muck.

Elisa had thought it was an owl, at first, when she saw it flapping along beside the road, vainly trying to gain height with crooked wings. Looked like something had mauled the poor thing, but with those nasty talons and beak she wasn’t surprised the eagle appeared to have won. She was, however, surprised that _she_ had won the ensuing wrestle with the injured bird as she’d tried to subdue it — had taken at least twenty minutes chasing it with a towel before she’d all-but tackled it in someone’s garden and bound its wings to its body, only for it to let her have it with the beak. Ouch.

Her workplace wasn’t too far away. She pulled into the car park, killed the engine, and then hopped out to take the bird.

It was much heavier than she’d remembered it being, now the adrenaline was fading and her heart rate was normal again. Her bad arm hurt as she tried to use it to support the carrier; made do with just using the one arm to carry it.

She hit the buzzer by the door, and glanced down at her bandages. The lighting wasn’t great out here but they looked darker than bandages should. Damn it, she didn’t want to spend a sleepless night in the ER. Would Anthony be willing to stitch her up for the night? He might not be a human doctor (well, a doctor of _humans_ ) but he knew what muscles, blood vessels and nerves were, surely _his_ treatment and diagnosis would be good enough instead of spending all night in the ER and turning up sleep deprived to work tomorrow?

Finally, someone inside hit a button and the door clicked.

She went in.

Anthony was at the desk. The only other non-American at the place raised an eyebrow and said, “Bloody hell, what happened to you?”

“This fella did.” Elisa raised the carrier with her good arm. Not easy, when the thing weighed more than any bird legally should. The thing was _ripped_ with muscle. “Found an eagle flailing around down the road. Don’t think it’s native. Fucked up my arm, too, mind taking a look at it when you’re done?”

“I’m a vet, not a doctor.” Anthony came around to take the carrier. “Huh, she’s a big one. Damn, that’s a lot of blood, how’s she even _alive_?”

“She wasn’t calm when I was catching her,” said Elisa. “Anyway, I don’t want to wait until 4AM in the emergency department for stitches and antibiotics. If you stitch me up tonight I promise I’ll see a doc tomorrow.”

Anthony glanced between Elisa and the carrier, mentally triaging. “Alright, but first I need to look at the bird. I’m amazed she’s alive. Those claw marks look like she got mauled by the mother of all mountain lions.”

“You’re telling me,” said Elisa, following Anthony into one of the practice’s rooms. “I thought mountain lion, but even this eagle wouldn’t have gotten away.”

“No kidding!” Anthony carefully put the carrier on the examination table. Ophelia drifted in, the only nurse on duty, and stared at the eagle, wide-eyed. “She’s bloody huge!”

“Omigod,” said Ophelia. “She’s beautiful!”

“Bet she’s prettier without all that blood,” said Anthony, snapping his fingers at Ophelia, who scowled at the gesture. “Tranquiliser. You know the stuff to get.” He groaned. “God, dealing with that beak and those claws are going to be fun. Why didn’t you put a hood on her?”

“I don’t keep bird hoods in my car.”

“You should’ve called. You’re supposed to use two people to catch an eagle.”

“Figured since it was dark it wouldn’t be a hassle.” Sheepishly, Elisa stooped enough to get a good look at the eagle in the carrier. Unlike most birds in her predicament, she wasn’t cowering. She didn’t even seem to be glaring any more, just lying at the latch with blood-soaked feathers and looking between Elisa and Anthony while on her back. Or maybe it was all the blood on her face, it was hard to tell. “I wrapped her good and tight in the towel, we might still be able to get a hood over her…”

“Is that a belt over the towel?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s give it a go.” He raised his voice. “Ophelia, get us a hood, will you?”

“What about the anaesthetic?”

“Don’t think we’ll need it yet, just get the hood.”

By the time Ophelia had arrived with the hood, the bird had managed to roll herself back on two legs, instead of lying around like an undignified enchilada. Anthony opened the carrier. “Come on, girl,” said Elisa, smacking her lips. “Pspsps. Come on out.”

“Hope she doesn’t try to jump for it,” said Anthony. “Oof. Something’s gouged out that eye.”

“Poor girl,” said Elisa, as the eagle watched them uncertainly.

“Getting a look at _that_ without a hood is going to be difficult,” said Anthony. “I’ll do it after the x-ray.”

“Come on, girl,” said Elisa, in that voice she reserved for frightened animals. “Or… boy. Hey, it’s okay. We’re just going to take a look at you and patch you right up. We’re not going to hurt you.”

The bird, wrapped in a towel with the belt keeping it secure, quietly waddled out. Somehow, she didn’t fall flat on her face.

“Good girl,” Elisa crooned, as Ophelia handed her the hood. Anthony went pale when he realised what Elisa was doing, but the hood went on with no fuss, and Anthony breathed a sigh of relief. “Good girl. You’re such a good girl.”

“I think she’s a little _too_ calm,” said Anthony. “That’s not good.”

“She _has_ lost a lot of blood.”

“Might be a good idea to skip the anaesthetic.” Anthony’s gentle fingers were nothing like his gruff demeanour as he undid the belt. “Don’t want her to go into cardiac arrest.”

“Her wings are broken, I hope I didn’t make them worse when I pinned them.”

“It’s alright, you can’t have made things worse more than we already couldn’t fix.” Anthony unpeeled the towel, gently moving the eagle onto her back. The eagle didn’t protest. “Alright, these wounds look worse than they are, I think these happened a day or two ago, not that recently.”

“Really?” Elisa’s arm was starting to hurt as the adrenaline continued to fade, but the distraction of the bird kept the pain from getting too much. “They looked fresh when I saw them. Look at the blood on the towel.”

“Well, they aren’t bleeding any more,” said the vet, gently moving the feathers with a gloved hand to show Elisa. “Weirdly enough, the blood looks fresh, though. Might not be her blood.”

It hadn’t taken her longer than five minutes to drive back to the practice. But it had been dark outside, so maybe she just hadn’t seen the wounds clearly. “Did she pick a fight with a couple of broken wings, did she?”

“Hell if I know,” said the vet, gently spreading out a wing. The bird cried out, but didn’t move. Anthony watched the beak carefully. “Hush, darling, hush. Just taking a look. Yeah, that’s definitely broken. Going to need surgery, looks like it’s broken in multiple places. One looks like a compound. How’s the other?”

“Broken in… two places, it looks like. Won’t know without a proper x-ray.”

“Goes without saying,” said Anthony. “She’s still too calm, let me check her heart.” He reached for a stethoscope.

Ophelia and Elisa dutifully remained silent as he listened.

“Heart sounds fine.” Anthony removed his stethoscope. “Quite good for the amount of blood she seemed to have lost, actually, so it’s likely something else’s blood. We can tranquilise her, that beak and those claws are nasty.” He glanced at Elisa as Ophelia scurried from the room for the tranquilisers. “Those bandages weren’t as red when you came in, you should go to the ER.”

“I will,” said Elisa.

“Seriously, you should go now, that’s a lot of blood.” Anthony looked from Elisa’s arm to the bird. “You sure this isn’t _your_ blood?”

“She was drenched in blood when I found her,” said Elisa.

Ophelia returned not long after with a syringe of green liquid. Anthony started going through the feathers on the bird’s breast. “You know,” he said, “I think I overstated those wounds, they actually look a few days old. Think I need new glasses.”

Elisa peered at the bird’s chest as Anthony deftly slid in the syringe. The bird struggled, briefly, but with Ophelia pinning her head to the side and Anthony’s pressed down on her breast, the bird couldn’t thrash overmuch. “I swear I didn’t see a scab five minutes ago.”

“We’re all tired.” Anthony withdrew the needle. “Seriously, go to the ER. She might’ve got some nerves or a tendon, and that can be permanent if it’s not tended to ASAP.”

“Anthony, I really don’t want to spend all night hanging around in a waiting room and having to do my shift tomorrow while sleep deprived. I just want to go to bed. I’ll see a doctor after work tomorrow, I promise, but please don’t make me do it tonight.”

“Go first thing in the morning, then,” said Anthony. “I’ll leave a note for the day crew, they can deal with it. Ophelia, can you help me get the x-ray?”

“I’ll raid the first aid kit,” said Elisa.

“You do that,” said Anthony, sliding a hand under the eagle. “Oof, you’re a heavy girl, aren’t you? Biggest bloody bird I’ve ever seen.”

“She’s even bigger than the cockies we got in Sydney,” Elisa called after him as he left the room. “You don’t want to get bitten by one of those, their beaks are tough enough to chew through branches!”

Yeah. It was a good thing she’d waited for Anthony to leave the room before she looked at her arm, because it was _bad_. The staticky tingling returned with a vengeance after she unwrapped it, and the bandage was pretty soaked. She dabbed at the wound with gauze. She winced at the sting. As she cleaned her wounds, the bloody gauze in the sink piled up.

“Honestly, Ophelia,” came Anthony’s voice from the other room. “I’ve been treating animals for forty years and never seen anything like this. It’s weird that there’s huge claw marks, but no bite marks at all. And where’d the fresh blood come from? There’s no old blood here at all, so she must’ve cleaned herself up completely when the wounds first healed — which suggests she had functioning wings back then. But then how’d she get bled on afterwards? How’d she break her wings? This is bizarre. I’m not convinced it’s a mountain lion that hurt her wings.”

“What else could’ve done it?” said Ophelia.

“You know,” said Anthony, “I think somebody did this on purpose. If the bird bit and tore at whoever did it, it’d explain the blood.”

“Think it was the owner? She doesn’t look native.”

“Could’ve been, but look at the sheen on those feathers. Look at those muscles. This is a bird used to being _very_ well taken care of. There’s no proof of anything that I can give you, but my guess is she got out, got attacked by a mountain lion, got away, and someone else caught her because of her injuries and decided to fuck around.”

“Assholes.”

“Let me tell you,” said Elisa, stepping into the back room with gauze pressed against her wound. The nearby cages were silent except for the occasional scratching sounds in boxes covered with towels. “They would’ve needed a friend. Her wings are both broken and I had one _hell_ of a time catching her by myself. If her wings were intact, they’d have had to try hard to catch her. Hey, Ophi, can you stitch me up when you’re done there? ‘Cause I need stitches. I’ve already cleaned it out, but…”

“We’re almost done, just doing the other wing,” said Anthony, bent over the bird in the x-ray machine. The bird’s wing was carefully spread as Anthony pushed some buttons. “But I swear if I find out tomorrow you didn’t go to the ER, I’m — “

“I will, I will! Just let me see this through first, okay?”

Anthony rolled his eyes, but said nothing. The x-ray machine beeped. It disturbed something in one of the cages, which chittered in annoyance before falling quiet.

“I wouldn’t even know what dose of local to give you,” said Ophi.

“Screw the local, it’s just a needle,” said Elisa. “Can’t be worse than her ladyship with the beak.”

“Eh, fair.”

Ophelia disinfected and tended to Elisa’s wounds. Elisa clenched her jaw and tried to ignore the pain of the antiseptic, and of each stitch. “Seriously,” said Ophelia, “if this gets infected, I didn’t do it.”

“ _Okay guys I have already promised you I will go to the ER tomorrow, stop nagging me!_ ”

“What I want to know is,” said Anthony, gently placing the bird on her back. “Where’s the bird from?” He gently wet and dabbed at her face with the gauze. Carefully. But the bird didn’t snap at him, despite appearing alert. “We have big eagles here, but none of them look like that. That looks European. Dunno what species but I’m _sure_ it’s European. Oh — oh she _does_ have an eye under that mess.” Elisa could see now that the bird’s eye was firmly shut, but definitely there. “Well, that’s a relief. You know, I think I saw eagles like this in Poland when I went after the Berlin Wall came down…”

“Actually,” said Ophelia as she tied off a stitch, “now that you mention it, there’s a Russian guy who has an eagle.”

“Russian guy?” said Anthony.

“There’s this new nightclub that opened three weeks ago,” said Ophelia. “Owner’s Russian. Has a hugeass bird. Like. _Huge_. Maybe it’s his?”

Suddenly, the eagle’s attention swiveled to Ophelia. She tilted her head, hood and all, and called softly.

“The Quicksilver?” said Elisa.

“No, the Quicksilver’s the one that shut down,” said Ophelia. “The Viper’s the new one. Dude once came out to talk to the bartender with this fuck-off hugeass bird on his shoulder. The bird didn’t even give a shit about the music or the crowd. Bartender told me he was the owner. The guy, not the bird. Anyway he’s this Russian guy and Russians don’t give a shit, and neither do Russian birds, I guess. She looks the right size.”

“You know,” said Anthony, gently urging the bird into one of the dog cages lining the walls, “Poland’s right next to Russia…”

“Wait,” said Elisa, “I know where the Viper is. That’s the place that just opened up on the — “

“Yeah, that one,” said Ophelia, tying off another stitch.

“ — so I can drop by and ask the owner if she’s his,” said Elisa. “It’s Wednesday, it’s not going to be crammed with people or anything.”

“I can just get Ophelia to call them and ask,” said Anthony, disappearing into another room. Stitches done, Elisa and Ophelia followed him.

“Aww, come on, that’s boring,” Elisa groaned. “I wanna meet the Russian guy with the cool-ass bird. And check out the club. Come on, why would you deprive me by _using a phone?_ ”

“It’s out of your way if you’re wrong,” said Anthony, picking up sheaves of black plastic from a printer. He placed them on the lighbox mounted on the wall. Ophelia switched off the light without being asked, and Elisa examined the x-rays. Oof, those breaks were nasty. “If it’s the club I think you mean.”

“Pretty sure it’s right,” said Ophelia, “how many people have a bigass bird that comes from Russia? Or Poland, or whatever?”

“Then I’ll go home and call _you_ and tell you I was wrong!” said Elisa. “Come on, I’m just going to go home, eat, and be bored for an hour before I go to bed. Let me have _some_ distraction from my pathetic-ass life, _please_.”

Anthony rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and threw his arms up. “Fine. I’m going to start making a treatment plan.” He looked back to the x-rays. “’Cause she’s gonna need surgery for that.”

Ophelia leaned in closer to Elisa. “He was _really_ hot. Totally worth driving out there for even if it’s not his bird.”

“I’m glad I have _somebody_ _’s_ moral support in this, at least.”

“You’re damn lucky to not be on the clock right now, let me tell you.”

-o-

And that was how Elisa ended up checking out the new nightclub with an arm stained with iodine and a bunch of sweet new stitches and battle wounds. And a tingly arm.

It was quiet, as she’d predicted, but there were still a few clusters of people quietly drinking and amusing themselves at the bar. Tables had been brought out and scattered all over the dance floor, with people of all ages nursing drinks and snacks. The music was only background noise. The place looked modern enough; refurbished, with a glass box overlooking the tables. Elisa couldn’t help but wonder what it must be like on busy nights. She hadn’t been clubbing since her 21st.

The bartender seemed to be watching the doors when Elisa came in, but quickly occupied himself by fiddling with the register when he caught her eye. The bartender looked like he was in his forties or so, with deep laugh lines on either side of his mouth. When Elisa approached, the lighting made the teeth in his smile appear small and grey. “Good evening.” The accent was Russian, she noticed. Or some other brand of Eastern European. “What’ll it be?”

Sadly, he wasn’t hot at all, and he was older than Ophelia had led her to believe. Elisa smiled brightly all the same — dude was still cool, _he had a bird!_ — and said, “Actually, my name is Elisa Mulgrew, I’m from the Tucson Wildlife Veterinary Hospital. We picked up a huge bird, my coworker said it might belong to you…”

“Master Kaminsky is missing his Riga, yes,” said the bartender without batting an eyelid. Ah, must be a family member, not the actual owner. Although ‘master’ was a weirdass way to refer to a family member, maybe they weren’t related after all? “He often lets her fly, and she has always come back before now. You found her?”

“Uh, yes, she’s about this big.” Elisa spaced out her hands. “Found her near the outskirts, on my way home.”

“Master Kaminsky will be pleased,” said the bartender, which made Elisa think more of an evil villain’s henchman than a hospitality worker. Elisa’s mouth twitched in a suppressed laugh. “Come with me, he’s on the roof.”

Elisa followed him.

If there was anybody else who worked the bar on Wednesdays, Elisa didn’t see them. Behind the scenes seemed to be quiet and rather forlorn, if strangely large for a club. More than a few doors seemed to lead to unspecified, mysterious rooms that seemed to be out of bounds to customers. Did Kaminsky live on the premises? Still, the bartender led Elisa up a flight of stairs, through the glass box — ooh, neat! The view up here was actually pretty sweet — and then up another set of stairs.

The roof was quiet and sparse. There was no fancy decor up here, except a few potted cacti which looked like they’d only just been brought up and hadn’t yet found proper homes. Up here, the city lights out-bled the stars like they did on any other street. But the space was large — Elisa didn’t realise how large the building was until she was up here, in this wide, open, deserted space, with nothing but the cacti and the bartender to accompany her.

And the man at the table.

For a fellow who liked his rooftops, he seemed to hate his sun and indeed, any light at all; the man was as white as a sheet, and was bent over a sheaf of papers, pen poised in the air, a faraway look in his eyes. His age was impossible to discern in the darkness, but was dressed in a tight shirt, jeans, and a diesel jacket. His hair — brown? Blond? Grey? — seemed to be long and pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. There weren’t any lights sitting on his table, and the street lights didn’t illuminate the rooftop well, but if he had any problem reading the papers in front of him he didn’t seem to show it. If anything, he’d seemed to forget they were there.

For a moment the bartender seemed to hesitate — as if unwilling to disturb the man, or if he’d forgotten how to address him, before he finally said, “Master Kaminsky?”

The man blinked once, but otherwise didn’t seem to hear.

The bartender cleared his throat, then tried again, a little louder. “Master Kaminsky?”

“Mmm?” The man blinked again; more rapidly, this time, returning to his senses. Then looked at the bartender. “Ah. Alexander. _Czy to weterynarz? Czy ona ju_ _ż tu — ?_ “ He looked to Elisa. “Ah! I see I have a guest.”

Elisa gave the man — Kaminsky? — her best customer-service smile, category: perky-American-female. Or maybe she should go for the perky-Australian-female, that one was a bit different…

“This is Miss Elisa Mulgrew.” Alexander seemed to stiffen slightly, like a soldier giving a report. “She is a veterinary nurse. She says she has found an eagle. It may be Riga. Miss Mulgrew, this is Master Lettow Kaminsky, the owner of our establishment.”

To Elisa’s mortification, she chirped before she could stop herself, “Please, call me Elisa!” in the most obnoxiously peppy voice she’d ever used outside of the veterinarian’s office.

Fuck.

“Have you?” Lettow Kaminsky seemed to raise his eyebrows, but it was a bit hard to tell in the darkness. “Perhaps you can verify if it’s our Riga, Elisa. Thank you, Alexander, that will be all.”

Much to Elisa’s confusion, Alexander actually _bowed_ before he left. The fuck? But Lettow frowned at the man’s back, as if he was just as disconcerted as Elisa was.

“Elisa.” Yes, she thought as she stepped closer, the Europeans were definitely more understated in their appearances — there was a faint smile from Lettow Kaminsky, but not the dazzling brilliance an American was more likely to give her. “Riga is somewhat distinctive — I’ve actually been showing photos to neighbours since she went missing. Here is one, come look.”

He picked up a couple of pieces of paper from the stack he had on his desk. A pair of photos, actually. Elisa had been able to see in the dark like a cat when she was a child, but now it seemed a bit harder to make out the photo. “Do you have a light?”

“Pardon me.” Lettow laughed, and stood up. “I’ve been daydreaming since sunset, my eyes have adjusted to the dark and the roof isn’t set up yet. Let’s go inside.”

The stairwell, inside, had enough light. Elisa followed him down, half her attention on the steps and the other half on the photos. They looked older than they should be, but they must have been taken on an ‘80s camera — the Lettow Kaminsky in the photo looked the same age as the one she could now see in the light, with the faintest hint of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, but otherwise young. He could be anywhere from an older teenager to late twenties. He looked like a man that liked to smile. When they stopped in the hallway beyond, she returned her full attention to the photos. In the first one, he was looking at the camera with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and a dignified bird on his arm. But in the second — ah, yes, there was that smile she’d seen in the faint lines on his real face. He was absolutely glowing in amusement at the bird on his arm, who was in the midst of blurring her wings and making a now-silent call as if indignant he’d dared turn his attention to the camera instead of her. It looked as if the photos had been taken moments apart.

It was endearing, seeing the man’s visage light up when he looked at his bird.

The colours were desaturated compared to real life, but… “That’s her,” she said, offering the photos back to Lettow. He smiled at her, and it didn’t reach his eyes any more than it had in the first photo. But, well, she wasn’t a gorgeous eagle. “Definitely her. Looks like she wants your attention.”

“She’s used to being spoiled.” Lettow’s eyes had wandered to Elisa’s arm, hidden by her jacket. “Did you hurt yourself? It wasn’t Riga, was it?”

“It’s nothing,” said Elisa. Had she been overly careful with it, for him to notice? “Wildlife vet, sometimes our clients get cranky at us for having the audacity to care about their wellbeing.” For a moment, an awkward silence hung in the air, before she found herself blurting out, “Would you like me to give you a ride?” Wait, that sounded dirty. “To the vet, I mean.” Shit, if he hadn’t noticed how dirty it sounded he sure would _now_. “I, uh, have a car.” Damn it!

“Perhaps you might want to take care of that, first.” Lettow pointed to her jacket sleeve.

“Uh,” said Elisa. She glanced down at her sleeve, but there was no indication she had a bandage under there.

“It _was_ Riga, wasn’t it?” His accent was nice. Very nice.

Oh, right, he was waiting for her to speak. “She’s a fighter.”

“And much more dangerous than most eagles,” Lettow went on.

“Yeah, she was…” Elisa blushed. “She was scared. I’ve restrained birds of prey before, they’re pretty dangerous but I’ve never met any as strong as Riga. It’s alright, my coworker gave me stitches and tomorrow I’m going to have a doctor have a look at it.”

“May I have a look?” Lettow held out his hands. Maybe it was Elisa’s imagination, but they seemed to change colour, turning from an ivory into a healthier tone right in front of her eyes. “You would not be the first person on the end of Riga’s fury, I assure you.”

“Alright, but at this point there’s nothing much anyone can do.” Elisa laughed, offering him her arm. “It’s already been disinfected and stitched. Tomorrow I’ll have a doctor take a proper look at it, but I didn’t want to sit in the ER all night.” Lettow’s warm fingers gently pushed up her sleeve and peeled the sticky red bandages from her arm — not soaked through, but not clean, either. His touch was gentle. “I think there’s a bit of nerve damage — I’m sure it’s fine, though! But I just wanted — she’s such an incredible bird, I wanted to help her. I mean, I help animals all the time, often take home baby animals to nurse and so on, and… yeah, I’d rather do that than sit in the ER. That’s what tomorrow’s for.”

Lettow winced audibly when he looked at her mangled arm. The bruises were coming in already, there was blood all over the stitches. Riga’s beak had bitten _deep_ and, in some areas, had torn. There was more than one flap of skin and muscle Ophelia had had to stitch down…

Huh.

Maybe she _should_ go to the ER tonight after all.

Lettow tutted. “Which car is yours?”

The sudden non-sequitur had her blinking. “Huh?”

“The car you drive. What does it look like?”

“Oh!” Shit. How embarrassing. “Red Honda. In the parking lot outside.”

“I will meet you there.” Lettow lowered her arm. “I can give you something for the wounds.”

Elisa was about to protest, but the charming not-quite-smile he gave her silenced her. He seemed melancholy, although intrigued; like she’d disturbed a melancholy puppy with a new toy. “I’ll take you to the door, then meet you outside,” he said. “This way.”

It was a good thing he didn’t abandon her in here. She would have had trouble finding the way Alexander had brought her in. It was all winding hallways and doors. They looked like they led to meeting rooms and studies, but one particular door seemed grander than the others and was locked shut. A penthouse, maybe? The man must be a night owl, or else slept like a rock. Even if he’d had the place soundproofed, he’d feel the bass through the floor on busy nights.

He left her at the club’s main room, and she weaved her way through the tables and outside into the cold desert air. She found her car and unlocked it, and took out a water bottle. She soaked the used bandages, squeezed them, and dabbed gingerly at the oozing wounds and the blood. She winced.

Yeah, she wasn’t going to be able to sleep through this pain. Once this was over, stuff it, she was going to the ER. For painkillers, if nothing else.

She half-sat in the driver’s seat, reached over to the back, and pulled out the first aid kit. There were still bandages in there. She’d put a fresh layer on after Lettow got there.

She didn’t have to wait long — by the time she had the first aid kit next to her, she saw a figure coming towards her in the darkness. Under the street light she saw a strange look on Lettow’s face, as if he was running calculations in his head. She smiled at him, bringing the first aid kit out and putting it on the hood.

He returned her smile politely. He had a small vial in his hand, full of some dark liquid, and a bulky bag at his hip. “An old family recipe,” he said. “Very good for aches and pains, and speeds healing. Perhaps I can apply it for you in the car before we go? I know how to use it.”

“That would be nice, please!” Elisa chirped.

In the car, she put the overhead light on, with the first aid kit in her lap. Lettow briefly got confused when she got back into the apparent passenger seat, before laughing when he spotted the steering wheel. “Been a while since I’ve been in an English car.”

“This one’s from Australia,” said Elisa. “It was brand new when mum and dad suddenly decided they had to move out here. They decided, fuck it, just ship it over rather than buy a new one. God forbid they buy used.” Elisa shrugged as Lettow got into the passenger seat, placing his bag at his feet. “They’ve moved back home, it’s old and I needed wheels, so it’s mine now.”

“That must make driving curious.” In the light, the vial’s contents were a deep red. Lettow held out a hand for her arm.

“I’m used to it.” She gave it to him. “If anything it feels weird to have anyone else drive me anywhere because I’m sitting in the ‘driver’s’ seat.”

Lettow placed the vial between his legs to remove the stopper. She found herself blinking at the aroma that emerged. “Ah, you smell that?”

“Whoa,” said Elisa. “That smells like I could eat it.”

“I do not recommend that.” Lettow laughed. He poured a small amount on her arm — it was viscous, she noticed, and a bit sticky — and started to gently dab at her stitches and bruises. “Don’t tell anyone I gave this to you. I’m not actually supposed to use this on anyone, but you seem… different. I think it is alright if it is you.”

“I really want to eat it.” She was actually drooling a little. “I’m guessing bad things happen if you eat it. Er, drink it.”

“It’s very concentrated,” said Lettow.

“What _is_ it?” It actually didn’t hurt much for him to put it on. The pain of the areas that he had put it on were already beginning to dull. The flip side was that its colour made her arm look even bloodier than before, to her amusement.

“Secret family recipe.” He smirked at her.

“Fine.” She poked her tongue out at him. “Guess I can’t run off to Big Pharma and sell your secrets, eh?”

He just chuckled, going back to her arm. Now that the pain was dulling, it was kind of nice to have someone touch her, to delicately pay attention to her wounds. Damn. She must be touch starved. Or maybe it was because he was pretty. He was _very_ pretty. Those _eyes_ and, ooh, that slight pout… that irresistible smirk…

If he dragged her into the back seat right then and there, she would have zero objections. Which was kind of embarrassing — she’d never met anyone who’d had that effect on her before. She had begun to think herself incapable of feeling lust for anyone. Maybe it was just a rare thing. At twenty three, she was still a virgin because of it, but _oof, this man!_

“It says a lot about your character that Riga did so much damage,” said Lettow, “and yet you still wanted so badly to help her that you came out here rather than seek medical attention.”

“It was stitched up, it’s fine,” said Elisa.

“Weren’t you upset she hurt you?” His fingertips were so gentle against her skin. It was making her heart go wild.

“No,” said Elisa. “She’s an animal. She didn’t know I wanted to help. She was scared.” She’d seen the wounds birds could inflict, and this one was bigger and meaner than most at the time. Elisa wouldn’t have been surprised at all if Riga had broken her arm with that powerful beak. “I had to do something. I couldn’t leave her there…”

Lettow gave her another smile.

Unlike the others he had given her, this one reached his eyes.

She hesitated.

“… Lettow.” Elisa frowned. “She’s badly hurt. The vet did x-rays. She’s got two broken wings. She’s got lacerations all over her body. Just… don’t be… too shocked when you see her.”

“I’m sure she’s fine.” She felt a flash of annoyance as he said that, gently easing the lotion, or whatever it was, into her wounds. “Riga is very tough.”

Up until now she’d quite liked the man, but of course, he probably thought she was some dumb secretary. She turned away to roll her eyes, slow her breathing, and control her voice. “Sir, she has two broken wings. I’ve seen the x-rays myself.”

“She has old fractures on both wings,” said Lettow, not looking up from his ministrations. “It would not be the first time they have been mistaken for breaks. Her old vet told me that it’s the way they healed.”

Hell no. Elisa knew what breaks looked like, and Riga’s wings had been broken in several places. That bird was going to need surgery. But fine, if the chauvinist wanted to believe she was too stupid to do her job, so be it. He’d been nice up until now, but in light of his words suddenly that kindness seemed patronising and condescending.

And it sure killed her libido.

He must have sensed her silence, because that’s when he looked up. Elisa quickly plastered a false, modest smile on his face. “I’m sure.”

She must not have seemed totally convincing. “I don’t question the work you do,” said Lettow, amiably, before turning her arm over to treat the wounds underneath. “You are the vet, not me.”

“Heh. I’m just a nurse.” Great, undermining _herself_ in front of him made her feel even worse, now. “I’m not a vet yet.”

“But you wouldn’t be a nurse if you didn’t know what you were doing,” said Lettow, returning his gaze to her arm. “Please don’t let me make you feel that I don’t respect your expertise. It is simply that Riga makes a habit of surprising vets. They are not used to her species, or her history, and have been surprised at ‘miracle’ recoveries before when she simply wasn’t very wounded in the first place. It’s easy for even the best professionals to think she is worse off than she is.”

Well. Elisa had to grudgingly admit she’d misjudged the lacerations on Riga’s breast, and the eye she’d thought had been gouged out, but there was a difference between mistaking days-old wounds for fresh ones, and confusing healed wings for shattered ones. So Elisa smiled like a dumb little girl, and said nothing.

“May I see your other arm?” He unrolled some fresh bandage and applied it deftly to her left arm.

“It’s not bad,” said Elisa. “Just some cuts. I’ve got bandaids over them.”

“There’s plenty more of this.” The vial wasn’t even half empty. He gave her another diplomatic smile and once he had secured the bandage she gave him her other arm. She didn’t make a sound as he peeled off the bandaids. “You’re definitely tough. I give you credit. Have you always been like that?”

Elisa shrugged. “No point moaning about it, is there?”

“Tell that to most people I meet.” He gave a wry smile. Another one of his diplomatic “smiles,” although there was definitely a spark of curiosity in there. “Sometimes, bad things happen. You just have to deal with it as it comes. Adapt. Maneuver around it. Or endure it until it passes.”

“I suppose.” He wasn’t wrong, anyway. She’d never been a complainer.

“You don’t think so?” He glanced up at her.

“Heh.” She glanced back to her arm. He was getting through this one faster than he had the other, but he seemed to be slowing down, as if lost in thought, or perhaps prolonging it to hear her answer. Not that it endeared him to her now that the hurt from his earlier comments were still aching in her chest. “I suppose it’s just that I’m not sure I’m qualified to say if it’s actually that simple. I’ve never gone through real hardship. I’ve never lost a leg, never had a friend die, never lost a parent. I’ve never been in a war zone or been bombed. I say there’s no point complaining, but this is… this is just an animal attack. An attack by a scared animal. It’s not something to complain _about_.”

“Someone always has it worse?”

“Not that either,” said Elisa. “It’s just that I haven’t been in a situation so bad that I’m able to preach how to deal with hardship. Maybe it can, with the important stuff. The worst I’ve ever dealt with is loneliness.”

“Loneliness?” Something about him seemed to tense, as if he’d seized on it, but it was hard to tell.

“I grew up in Australia,” said Elisa. “My Dad is American. I used to get made fun of in school for sounding like a ‘Seppo’.”

“A… what?”

“It’s Australian slang,” said Elisa. “Seppo is short for septic tank. Rhymes with Yank.”

“Ah. Cockney rhyming slang.” He paused. “Very _unflattering_ cockney rhyming slang.”

“Yeah,” said Elisa. “I found it hard to make friends with the other kids. In hindsight, the teasing wasn’t actually that bad, just… I was self conscious about the way I talked, I was shy, and I guess I needed an excuse to not want to talk to them. I was very skittish. I liked animals better than people. Spent my days reading my books, and my weekends playing with my pets. We had a lot of animals.”

She hesitated — she was talking too much — but then Lettow made an interested noise, as if prompting her to go on.

So after a moment, she did.

“When I was fourteen and Dad announced my grandmother was sick and we needed to move to the US for her,” said Elisa, “I thought it would be a homecoming. That I’d come home and be welcomed and make a ton of friends. That I’d somehow not be magically scared of people if they were other Americans.”

“Ah.” His expression was grim, but understanding as he tended to the last cut. “And then what happened?”

It was barely a question. He knew.

“Yeah,” said Elisa, “first thing people remarked on when I came here was how Australian I sounded.”

Lettow snorted.

“Yeah,” said Elisa. “They weren’t even mean about it, but I was _devastated_. And then there was huge culture shock… growing up I’d always felt too American for the Australians, but coming over here I realised how little I knew about American culture. How loud it was. How showy it was. If I wasn’t smiling, people assumed I was miserable and something was wrong. Everything was over the top and exaggerated, people weren’t just _good_ they were _awesome_. It was like if you thought something someone liked was merely okay, you’d insulted them somehow. There was a _ton_ of culture shock. And maybe if that culture shock wasn’t there I’d have gotten over the accent thing, laughed it off, and made friends anyway. But I didn’t. It didn’t help my mother hated it here, too — she sort of fed my feelings, I guess. We both went into this tailspin of depression and loneliness. I didn’t make the friends I thought I would. This time, I didn’t even have any animals at home. Mum and Dad had rehomed them all when we moved here. It just… sucked. A lot.”

She hadn’t meant to say that much. She couldn’t even say that there was something about Lettow that made her want to say it all. The man seemed closed off, walled off, much like any stranger, despite his tenderness. But as he lowered her arm for the last time, he paused for a moment in thought.

Then he said, “There have been dark times in my life where Riga was all that kept me going.” He put the lid back on the vial, and moved to dispose of the bandaids in the plastic bag where she’d left the old bandages. “She was my light in the darkness. And when even the darkness seemed overwhelming, knowing that she depended on me, that she loved me, gave me strength.” He paused for another moment, and then added, “If she hadn’t been there, I do not know what I would have done to myself.”

Elisa quietly took the plastic bag from him and tied it off. Her left arm still throbbed, but not too badly; she could use it just fine now. If the ointment kept working, she’d be able to sleep. “I went back to Australia.”

Lettow watched her thoughtfully.

Elisa tossed the plastic bag into the back seat. Moved to turn off the overhead light. Put her belt on. Turned the key in the ignition. “Yup. University is basically free in Australia. You take out an interest-free debt, but the government can’t chase it up if you fuck off overseas. Anyway… you going to put your belt on?”

“Pardon,” said Lettow, floundering around for a moment.

She couldn’t help but watch in amusement. “You know, it’s in the same place it is in the American cars.”

“I drive antiques,” said Lettow, finally finding it. “No belts in them.”

The man was more and more interesting as he talked. “And here I thought you wanted to splatter yourself all over the inside of my windshield.”

“I don’t think Riga would be pleased to be deprived of head scritches,” said Lettow.

That made Elisa laugh. She turned to reverse, putting her arm around the back of Lettow’s headrest as she backed up.

It was nice, having someone in the car next to her that she enjoyed talking to. Not someone who yapped for the sake of filling the air. But not a long, awkward silence either.

“What happened when you went back to Australia?” said Lettow.

“Much the same thing,” said Elisa, putting the car in drive and navigating out of the carpark. Parking lot. Whatever. She always zig zagged between her slang and dialects. “That’s what happens when you’re half and half. You’re not really one or the other.” She glanced both ways, then turned into the street. “Sure, now I’d been gone a while I gained a new appreciation for the things I’d missed. Chocolate that actually tastes good. Sugar instead of corn syrup. Pretty birds. I still felt out of place, but I…” She ran her good hand through her hair. Her injured hand was able to hold the wheel just fine. Even the tingling had stopped. “I came to peace with it. Even missed the US a bit. There's a stunning natural world here, and more appreciation for the unique. Mum was missing being at home and bugged me about Australia all the time, because she was still in Colorado. Sent her a _lot_ of Cadbury and vegemite. Even made a few friends this time, once I realised that growing up in two different places was interesting to most people. Got over most of my shyness.”

“And then you came back here.”

“Figured — why not?” said Elisa, pulling up to red lights in an empty intersection. “I feel more at peace now. I don’t really belong here, or at home in Australia, but I’d come to realise I’d never had to. And I missed having dogs and wanted to settle down somewhere, but Sydney was expensive. Way more expensive than Tucson. Came back out here. Left all my friends behind, but I’d had no friends before, so I knew I’d be okay. There was culture shock again, but I knew that would happen, and I’d miss Australia again, just as I’d missed Colorado, and I knew I’d be okay. There’s pros and cons to everything. Everyone’s more expressive here. Wilder. More passionate. That’s one thing this place has over Australia.”

“Do you have a dog yet?”

“No,” said Elisa, “but I often bring wildlife home that needs overnight foster care.” She smiled. “I’ve also fostered a few baby coyotes whose mother were hit by a car, but they were too young to be weaned yet. Woke up every couple of hours like clockwork to feed them. I got really sleep deprived, but it was totally worth it.”

“You don’t have anyone to help with the feeding?” said Lettow.

“Oh, my coworkers do it too.”

“I mean, at home?”

“Nah,” said Elisa. “I don’t have a boyfriend, husband or children. No roommates. Just me and the furry orphans. And occasional feathered orphans. Had a parrot hatchling, once, not wildlife but the place down the road was having trouble finding someone to nurse it…”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Lettow smile again as she babbled.

Maybe it was the light, but this one seemed different than the ones that came before.

-o-

Lettow kept probing her with questions, but she’d talked about herself enough, so she turned them on him. He didn’t seem to like that, though he was gracious about it. He briefly alluded to having a sick wife (he didn’t wear a ring, so that was a genuine surprise to hear — and disappointing, if she had to be completely honest with herself), mentioned growing up in a town Elisa vaguely recalled as actually being in _Ukraine_ , which just confused her again.

“So you’re Ukrainian?”

“Polish.”

“Polish? Ah, my bad, I thought Bratslav was in Ukraine.” Anthony had been there once, it was the only reason she’d ever heard of the place.

He seemed surprised she knew it existed. “Soviet times,” he said. “The borders change a lot. Besides, both my parents were Polish and spoke Polish at home, so I am Polish.”

“Never felt Ukrainian?”

“Not for a second. But it was not the hardship for me as it was for you. I never felt affected by being elsewhere. If anything, I’ve always loved to be in strange places. Much like you, I don’t need to belong anywhere to be at home.”

That was the most information he gave her. After that, he dodged her questions and asked her more of his own. When she held back, he seemed strangely gratified, and changed the subject to Riga. On _that_ topic, he nattered eagerly. She mostly fed herself, Elisa discovered, although she always came home before he went to bed; bizarre behaviour for even the tamest of domestic birds, who often had trouble finding their way home if they got out. Riga was often awake a couple of hours into the evening, rather than falling asleep straight as dusk fell. She came when Lettow called her, and was trained to follow basic instructions. He’d rescued her when she’d been hit by a car; she’d broken a wing, he looked after her, and when he released her she kept coming back. So when he came to the New World, as he called it, he brought Riga with him.

Whether he left Eastern Europe before or after the fall of the Soviet Union, he didn’t say.

He seemed to be in high spirits once they returned to the veterinary clinic, although Elisa felt concerned about how he’d react to find his precious Riga hurt. She beckoned for him to follow her into the back rooms. He’d brought his bag with him, she saw.

As Elisa swept back the curtain to one of the dog cages, Riga sat on a pile of towels. Even behind the hood, Elisa could sense her glare.

“Ah!” said Lettow. “There is my girl. _Jak si_ _ę masz_ , Riga?”

Riga gave a soft call.

“I can’t believe little Elisa got the better of you.” Lettow sounded amused, and reached for the latch that imprisoned her. Elisa frowned, an old territorial instinct, but she let him. He removed the hood. Riga patiently padded over to him and then onto his arm.

“There we go,” said Lettow. He looked at her wet feathers. “And I see you’ve been given a bath, too! You’re a _very_ good girl if you behaved through that!”

“She fought like hell when she first came in.” That was Anthony, drifting in from one of the offices. “Elisa got the worst of it. She calmed right down though. Tranquiliser. Standard procedure when dealing with raptors.”

“Mmm,” said Lettow, as if he was humouring Anthony.

He was smiling, now. Truly smiling, even in his eyes, as he gazed at Riga. She puffed herself up majestically before her feathers settled. She clawed her way up Lettow’s arm, leaving puncture holes in his clothing.

Elisa could smell something, very faintly. It was the ambrosia-like scent of the salve Lettow had given her. She pulled at her jacket sleeve, but her arm was covered.

“Did you bugger off to get dinner or something on the way here?” Anthony raised an eyebrow at Elisa, who flushed at the implications and opened her mouth in protest. “I’m joking. Ophelia must be heating her dinner. Smells good. Anyway, uh, I should discuss the bird with you — a girl, you said?”

“Yes. Her name is Riga.” Lettow scratched her belly, right where her wounds were, which made Elisa wince. But neither Lettow nor Riga seemed concerned. “She looks fine. Thank you for her help.”

“Uh, I should go over the x-rays with you — “

“How do you take payment? I can send someone over in the morning to settle that, if you do not mind, I don’t keep my card in this bag… pardon me.”

“We’re a wildlife vet, we don’t charge.” But Anthony wasn’t a man who took no for an answer when it came to the wellbeing of his birds, and with Elisa behind him, Lettow had no choice but to be shepherded into one of the examination rooms. “Although since nobody at the place down the street does wild birds, we’ll probably be the ones to do the operation.”

“Operation?” said Lettow, a little helplessly. He glanced behind him as if searching for escape, but Elisa, in the doorway, caught his eye and quirked a brow.

“In a moment.” Anthony brought the x-rays back out. “She had quite a few lacerations on her breast.” Anthony put the x-rays back up on the lightbox and turned off the overhead lamp, leaving no light but the x-rays. “They’re a few days old from the looks of them, so I just had Ophelia clean up her feathers a bit and otherwise left them be. She also gave her some antibiotics. I _thought_ her eye was badly damaged, it looked like it had been gouged out, but I think it was just closed underneath the muck because as you can see, it’s just fine now.”

Sure enough, Riga was staring straight at Elisa with the eye she could have sworn was not in its socket when she’d first spotted the wound.

“But the wings are a different matter,” said Anthony victoriously, stepping back from the x-ray. “She’s going to need an operation, I’m afraid. As you can see, we’ve got three fractures in the right wing and two in the left. As you can see, one of the ones in the left is a compound, and…”

Then he glanced at Riga, sitting calmly on Lettow’s shoulder. The crookedness in her wings seemed to be much less obvious, even hidden. Maybe it was the light. Or the fluffed-up feathers. The light from the x-ray was probably making her wings look darker and make the crookedness harder to make out.

Thoughtfully, Lettow pressed the side of a curled forefinger pressed against his mouth, as he gazed at the x-rays.

Elisa looked from Riga, to the x-rays, then back to Riga.

Anthony peered at the bird.

Suddenly, the silence was very awkward.

“It was Ophelia who helped you with the x-rays, right?” said Elisa.

“Didn’t you see the breaks?” but Anthony didn’t sound so sure himself. “Let me check the machine for a second…”

“Her wings were crooked when I brought her in,” said Elisa as Anthony brushed past her. “I caught her, remember? You saw it. And I saw the compound fracture in the right wing, that was definitely bone I saw. She’s, uh…”

She looked at Riga again, who was preening some of the damp feathers on her breast.

Anthony was gone for an awkwardly long time. When he finally came back, Lettow still hadn’t said anything.

Anthony gave Elisa a hopeless, baffled shrug.

“Ophelia didn’t swap her with a different bird after the bath, did she?” But Riga was too big to be easily confused for another, her markings too distinct, and she was too happy on Lettow’s shoulder.

“Definitely not, she didn’t even take her out of the cage,” said Anthony. “We don’t have any other birds right now, let alone one as big as this girl.”

“You were _there_ , you know,” said Elisa. “For the x-ray.”

“Yeah, but — “

“I think,” said Lettow, and his words cut through the room like a knife, silencing even Anthony. “I think those are the wrong x-rays.”

There was something strange about the atmosphere, like some kind of rodent instinct within her at the realisation that a snake was in the grass. His demeanour seemed fine, hadn’t changed, and his voice was perfectly friendly. But he hadn’t torn his eyes from the x-rays, and there was something about that gaze that looked more like he was thinking than examining, as if there was a problem in front of him he had to solve…

Her arm wasn’t even throbbing any more.

“They’re definitely the right x-rays,” said Anthony. “I processed them myself, took them out of the machine myself. Ophelia was there. The tranquiliser — “

He went quiet when Lettow lifted his arm. Riga walked down it to near his wrist. Strange for a man owning a raptor to not want to use a glove at all. Quietly, Lettow stretched out her wing. Felt all along it.

When it was stretched out like _that_ , it looked just fine. Not like the nauseating mess it had been before. Left wing. No compound fracture. In fact, if Riga’s unfazed reaction was anything to go by, there wasn’t any fracture at all.

“What the fuck?” Elisa blurted out.

“It’s fine.” Lettow returned Riga to his shoulder, and the strange, tense atmosphere suddenly deflated. “It’s getting late, and you must be tired. I mix things up all the time.”

“I took those x-rays out of the machine myself,” said Anthony again. “If those are another patient’s scans, they would have been superimposed over something else. Those are not superimposed. Those are what we got.”

“Would you like to examine her again?” said Lettow.

Anthony took a step towards him, frowning at Riga. Riga hissed and raised her wings as if to frighten him off. Anthony didn’t even flinch, looking over the wings from a respectful distance, until he lowered his eyes with a frown and a baffled expression.

“What the fuck?” Elisa said again. Quietly, this time, under her breath.

Lettow went back to one of his real smiles as he scratched Riga under the chin. “She is a tough bird. Thank you both so much for going out your way to look after her — ah, and this other nurse of yours? Ophelia, yes? Thank her too, on my behalf. Is there anyone else on duty tonight I need to thank? Anyone Riga might want to say goodbye to?”

“Ah, no,” Anthony waved a hand. “Just the three of us. Uh. I guess that will be all, then?”

“Thank you again,” said Lettow. “Ah, Elisa, perhaps I could trouble you to take us home…?”

“Oh, not at all,” said Elisa, rousing herself from her confused daze. “Sure, come this way.”

Anthony didn’t go with them as she led Lettow and Riga, once again happy on his shoulder, through to reception. It was there that Lettow stopped her.

“I don’t suppose you’d mind if I took a photo of you with Riga?” he said. “She seems to like you.”

An unusual request, but not a completely rare one — once people who brought in animals knew they were okay, they sometimes wanted pictures with them. The unusual part was that he wanted Elisa in it. Or that he thought Riga had liked her, when the eagle had seemed quite indifferent to her. “Uh. Sure! She’s a lovely bird. Uhhh, I think I’ll grab a glove though, if you don’t mind.”

That made him laugh. He was back to those insincere laughs, as if trying to be polite. “Of course.”

Elisa found a thick leather raptor glove in one of the back rooms. She came back out with it on, and Lettow helped Riga step onto her hand. “Oof,” said Elisa, holding her out. “She’s a heavy girl.”

“Not too bad, I hope?” Lettow had spirited a camera from the bag at his hip. “Hmm, need a good place to — ah, perhaps you could stand over there? The background is less distracting.”

It was her good arm holding Riga, but if she held the bird too long it would soon get sore. She was having a bit of trouble holding her up as it was. She flushed. “I’m no good at posing.”

“Riga is good at making people look natural,” said Lettow, without looking up from his camera, adjusting the lens. He had a real smile on again as he held it up to his eye, which made Elisa smile, too

And she was going to hold that, but then Riga subtly moved, catching Elisa’s attention. Then Riga stretched, both wings out — “Whoa,” said Elisa, as the wingtip reached well past her head. “Her wingspan’s bigger than my arms!” She watched the bird in awe, breath caught in her throat as Riga’s powerful muscles rippled. Her arm was starting to strain with the effort of holding the massive bird up, but she was too lost in the bird’s majesty to care.

The camera snapped, once, twice, three times. And then Lettow lowered the camera, beaming at Elisa. “That was beautiful, Elisa. Here — “ He returned his camera to his bag and held out an arm. “— let me take her, I think she has made your arms sore enough!”

-o-

Lettow almost walked to the wrong side of the car again, corrected himself just before Elisa could make an absent-minded joke about him doing the driving, and sat with Riga in his lap. As if she didn’t have freakishly big and sharp claws. Elisa could smell that sweet, intoxicating scent again as she closed the door behind her, but just like before, it faded quickly.

Something about it now unsettled her.

On the way back, Lettow tried to strike up conversation again, asking her a few questions about her life which she answered with absent monosyllables. He fell quiet after a few attempts.

When she pulled into the carpark at the Viper, the place was a little emptier, though not by much. She found a spot and put the car in park.

And then came Lettow’s charismatic not-quite-smile again. “Thank you, Elisa,” he said, reaching for the handle with his left hand as Riga hopped out of his lap and onto the other. “I think Riga quite liked — “

Elisa flicked a switch, and the passenger door locked.

Lettow glanced from her to the door, and then back to her. The confusion lasted only for a second, then a strange gleam settled in his dark gaze. The twist in his mouth looked like a smirk more than a smile.

“I was just thinking,” said Elisa. “About Riga. About when I caught her.”

Once upon a time, when Elisa had first come to Tucson and was on her first week at the job, animal control had been called out. She’d gone with them. A mountain lion had wandered too far south, been hit by a car and limped into someone’s back yard. Common sense and instinct had told her, as soon as she’d caught sight of it, to run back into the car and hide. She’d always been a skittish woman, more scared than fascinated, but the animal needed her, and animal control trusted her not to fuck up.

And there it had been, squatting in a large doghouse meant for an Irish Wolfhound. Its eyes had gleamed with silent fury that humans had _dared_ hunt it down, an injured predator pinned in a corner and armed with teeth and claws. The animal control officer had cocked his rifle, aimed, and released the tranquiliser.

She had no rifle with her now, no experienced older professional to protect her. And the gleam in Lettow’s eye wasn’t fury — it was victory.

He wasn’t a cornered mountain lion. He was an eagle that had his prey right where he wanted it.

And she was trapped in a locked car with it.

“She was screaming.” Elisa met his eyes defiantly. “Screaming at me. Animals do that, sometimes, when they try to scare off confrontation they can’t avoid. She was puffing herself up, making herself look bigger. She tried to fly away, but every time she did she’d gain a few metres then come crashing back down again. She screamed the entire time. I had locals coming out wondering what the fuck was going on. She kept screaming and fighting even when I pinned her down with the towel, trapped her wings and got a hold of her ankles. She screamed up until I got the belt around her. She didn’t want to be there.

“So what I want to know is,” said Elisa, “if she’s fine, if she’s perfectly fine, if that was just an error in the X-ray and the wounds were just a trick of the light, if the compound fracture was just my imagination… how was I able to catch her?”

Lettow held her eye for a long moment, not answering. She watched his face for any subtle change in its expression, his eyes for any movement, his mouth for any indication of tension or release. Even Riga was staring at her, motionless.

She’d helped treat that mountain lion from her first week, even when it turned out the tranquiliser hadn’t been enough and the mountain lion woke up when she’d tried to help shift it onto a tarp, even when she was at the toothy end. Back home, she’d been scratched to pieces as a child by a mother cat whose kittens she’d saved from drowning. She’d caught a venomous snake that had wandered into the house. And tonight, she’d been mauled by a powerful eagle.

She was not afraid of predators.

Lettow acknowledged this with a subtle incline of his head.

Without breaking eye contact, his finger flicked up the lock. He opened the door. Still looking at her with that odd smirk, he said, “Good night, Elisa Mulgrew.”

He shut the door without waiting for her answer, and took his strange bird back into the club with him.

Or maybe he didn’t. Elisa didn’t wait around to see.

-o-

It was almost midnight when she finally got home. The pain had faded so much that she’d forgotten that a hot shower was probably a bad idea with fresh wounds before she was shirtless and blinking, confusedly, at her bandaged arm.

Slowly, she unwrapped it.

The skin was stained red, but when she soaked a washcloth and dabbed away the blood, and the strange mixture Lettow had put on her arm, the skin was unbroken and unblemished. Even the stitches had fallen out, with tiny, coloured puffs of fibre washing down the sink, broken apart, as if something had dissolved them under her skin.

She pinched her thumb and forefinger together.

Nothing hurt at all.

-o-

Anthony never mentioned the incident again, and neither did Ophelia. For some reason management changed her shift to weirdass hours right after that and she was seeing them both around far more often now — two ‘til ten, both PM. Weird time for a shift, but it meant someone was on during shift change and she wasn’t doing overtime any more to help the transition. She asked about the change but the head vet only shrugged.

She went looking for the x-rays, to see if maybe there was something superimposed over them that Anthony hadn’t caught. She knew there wouldn’t be, not after seeing Lettow’s face in the dark before she’d driven off that night, but she tried anyway. When she asked Ophelia about them, the other nurse said, “Wait, you mean the hot guy from the Viper with the bird came here? And you didn’t tell me about it!?”

“Who owns a bird?” said Anthony.

“The Russian guy from the Viper!”

“He has a bird? What kind of bird?”

“Oh,” said Elisa. “Just a parrot or something. Not really interesting.”

“Boo!” said Ophelia. “I thought it was a goddamn condor at the size I saw! I’ve been deceived!”

The x-rays didn’t turn up. Even the printer record had a gap where they should be.

Life filled the hole Lettow’s absence had left — emergencies at work, a roadrunner missing half of its feathers, a coyote cub that had to be put to sleep after being mauled by someone’s dog. A baby raccoon with tiny little hands that took up residence under Elisa’s bed, until the head vet found out and, for some reason, had it transferred to someone else. Elisa found the strange man and his strange bird had completely left her mind, until she found a feather on her door step one afternoon before work.

She’d been such a beautiful bird, Elisa had thought, taking the feather into her car, where she attached it to hang from the rearview mirror. It was the same colour Riga had been. Big enough it might have been hers.

Three weeks to the night she scraped Riga off somebody’s scraggly lawn, Elisa pulled into the driveway of the tiny, dilapidated house she rented. When she was getting out of the car, something rustled in the bushes.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She touched the open door as if it were a shield. The air seemed still; no bats called, no insects chirped, and there was a nip of the oncoming winter in the air far too early in the year. There was a shape only a couple of metres away, blinking at her.

“Oh!” She relaxed. The coyote in front of her slowly swished its tail, cocking its head. “Just one of you. Thought you might be some axe murderer.” She pulled her bag over her shoulder. “Shoo, you.”

The coyote watched her.

“Shoo!”

She tossed a rock at its feet. It didn’t even flinch. Some asshole must have been feeding it.

She sighed. She locked her car and made for the front door, turning her back on the animal as she twirled her keys around her fingers. The door was nine feet away. Eight. Seven —

She dropped her keys.

By the time she picked them up again, hours later, the coyote was long gone.

**Author's Note:**

> If any actual Polish speakers have any corrections, pls let me know.
> 
> (Especially the title. Dear lord I hope I didn't fuck THAT one up lmao.)


End file.
